CONTRACT OPTIMIZATION PAYS BIG DIVIDENDS
POINTING OUT THE DETAILS
ECC-A property book officer Michael L. Mangum, left, and Maj. Reuben T. Joseph, chief of the Regional Contracting Office – South, discuss the operations of the main reverse osmosis water purification unit at KAF. Joseph was the KAF transition coordinator for the ECC-A Regional Contracting Office – South, ensuring that services were provided without interruption during the transition from NATO contracts to LOGCAP. (Photos courtesy of the author)
Tree LOGCAP contracts are multiple- award task order contracts. Tese three contracts require compliance with the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR), Army regulations and technical compli- ance regulations.
Te other service provider is the NATO Support
and Procurement Agency
(NSPA), which uses firm-fixed-price contracts that are geared toward meet- ing a particular requirement or group of requirements in a holistic manner. Tese NSPA contracts are exempt from compli- ance with U.S. contract law or the FAR, and the contract compliance and over- sight requirements are not as stringent or structured as those under LOGCAP. Tis disparity in contract methodol- ogy added a layer of complexity to the analysis and comparison that was unlike anything one normally experiences dur- ing a contracting career.
After several months of intense deep- dive analysis, Bannister decided to move toward LOGCAP as the primary service provider in southern Afghanistan, citing performance synergies obtained across the hub-and-spoke performance loca- tions in the region, the increased contract performance surveillance networks avail- able through DOD and the lower cost to the government. Tis decision rein- forced migration toward a single service
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provider—LOGCAP—which also is the U.S. Army’s logistics program of record to support contingencies.
Te decision encompassed locations across southern Afghanistan, includ- ing KAF and forward operating bases at Shorab and Dwyer, and involved a phased approach whereby LOGCAP would assume functions over time as the existing NSPA contracts reached the end of their periods of performance, in order to avoid early termination penalties.
It also resulted in a single “belly button,” or responsible party, for most services, to ease the burden on the operational commanders to obtain faster and more cost-effective services for their troops.
“Tis decision was a win-win for USFOR- A, the Resolute Support commanders and the taxpayers,” Tschida said, “as movement to LOGCAP is projected to result in savings of over $30 million per year.”
LOGCAP TRANSITION Following the USFOR-A decision to move to LOGCAP, the overall involvement of the CCAS team was just beginning. Because of the timing of the USFOR-A decision, less than 45 days remained for the initial transition to occur between LOGCAP and NSPA. In a contingency environment, the transition had to be
seamless: a lapse in service could have a negative impact on ongoing operations.
To assist in the transition, Tschida immediately increased the number of quality assurance (QA) specialists and sent a property book officer and property administrator to coordinate the inven- tory and conversion of NATO-furnished property to government-furnished prop- erty accountable under the LOGCAP contract. Tis in itself was a challenge because transferring NATO property laterally to a U.S. contract is a new area, requiring innovative processes and solutions.
Next, CCAS QA specialists conducted training for all of the contracting offi- cer’s representatives (CORs), including providing assistance with generating and implementing detailed contract per- formance surveillance checklists and schedules to ensure contractor compli- ance with the terms and conditions set forth in the contract. Tis, too, proved challenging: Under NSPA, all oversight was provided by the NSPA Program Office, so there were no U.S. CORs on ground and familiar with the specific tasks being performed. Tis meant that CORs had to be nominated, trained, approved, appointed and added to the DOD COR Tracking Tool, all in a mat- ter of days.
Army AL&T Magazine
January-March 2017
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